The Army Experience

I drew on a lot of my Army experience

Lt. Col. Shane Kimbrough explains how his Army experiences helped him in his previous space mission.

Being an Astronaut was a childhood dream when I was very little. That's when our folks were walking on the moon for the first few times and that's always stuck in my mind, seeing men walk on the moon and I always wanted to be one of those people one day.

But the Army has given me the opportunities that really I needed to get here. Education certainly, they provided me my bachelor's degree, my master's degree and all the operational experience that the folks here at NASA are looking for.

So everything that I needed to get here based on what NASA looking for has been provided through the Army.

I drew on a lot of my Army experience up there on the space flight mission. And mainly it's the mental toughness that I had that was created from my experiences in the Army.

Being up in space, it looks very easy, it looks just like your having a great time all the time, but it's extremely tough environment especially when you go outside.

It's really challenging, but we always work in a team and that's what I've learned from the Army, is being an integral member of a team. Sometimes you're the leader, sometimes you're the follower and I learned all those skills in the Army.

When you look at one mission, there's really thousands and thousands of people that are making that thing happen, it's not just the astronaut that you see.

So, I think the leading thing that kind of goes through everything I've done here is teamwork and I certainly learned that really starting at West Point and going through my Army career.